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September 6, 2017 /

It doesn’t get much more basic on any vehicle than brakes. The gas pedal and transmission may move a vehicle forward or backward, but only the brakes have the potential to stop you when you really need to do so. Because of a large truck’s size and weight, the braking system is even more critical than it is with a passenger vehicle. It can take a substantial distance to stop a semi, even with brakes that work well. And if the brakes stop worki...

September 6, 2017 /

Imagine driving with a car full of family on an interstate when traffic suddenly slows. You need to hit the brakes hard, but you manage to stop without crashing into the vehicle in front of you. Next, imagine you see an enormous semi in your rear-view mirror bearing down on you and your loved ones. Will the truck stop in time?
There’s no denying that the heavier a truck’s load, the harder it’s going to hit you. Isaac Newton’s Second La...

August 23, 2017 /

Some dangers on the road aren’t the huge semi on your bumper or the speeding driver weaving around you during a rainstorm. Some dangers can occur when you’re simply driving home, minding your own business. That’s what happened to Maria Federici. She was heading home on I-405 in Washington State when a piece of particleboard flew out of the rented U-Haul in front of her, smashing through her windshield. Federici almost died; she had nearly e...

August 22, 2017 /

At 2:30 a.m. on July 21, 2014, an Indiana truck driver arrived at a warehouse in South Bend. He picked up a load of steel in his 18-wheeler and headed west. Later that afternoon, while traveling through Illinois, the driver failed to notice that traffic ahead had stopped for road construction. He rear-ended a group of vehicles at 65 mph, killing five people. A criminal prosecution later revealed that the driver falsified his logbook that morning ...

August 8, 2017 /

A new transportation rule may soon impact your life: It has been proposed by both the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) that vehicles over 26,000 pounds must be outfitted with a device capping the vehicle’s maximum speed. Essentially, all large trucks would have their top speed regulated by a technological add-on. Both the NHTSA and the FMCSA think that this new ru...

June 12, 2017 /

Sideguards on tractor-trailers would help prevent some of the most devastating injuries on the road. So why are freight companies and trailer manufacturers opposed to the idea?
Thousands of collisions between tractor-trailers and passenger automobiles occur every year in our state. Predictably, automobiles take the brunt of the damage. In fact, according to recent data from the Indiana State Police, the fatality rate of automobile occupants in t...

May 9, 2017 /

You might not realize it, but trucking companies have begun installing in-cab truck cameras to provide evidence in case of crashes or other road mishaps. The technology arrives at a time when the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) recorded an increase in crash deaths of 8 percent from 2014 to 2015. No one wants to see more deaths because of wrecks involving large trucks, so the FMCSA is doing what it can to reduce them.
While tr...

April 27, 2017 /

Indiana experiences its share of truck traffic, with eight primary interstates and its geographic position in the middle of busy routes between Chicago and the southeastern U.S. Our state is ninth out of fifty when it comes to traffic fatalities involving large trucks during 2015, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). In that year alone, 117 persons died in crashes involving large trucks.
Now imagine a circumstanc...

February 3, 2017 /

A new study has determined that a commercial truck driver’s general health is connected to his likelihood of being in a crash.
Researchers at the University of Utah School of Medicine discovered that drivers are two to four times more likely to crash if they have three or more medical conditions. The Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine published the results in 2017.
Almost 50,000 commercial truck drivers were checked for 13 medi...

March 3, 2016 /

Deadheading? No, we’re not talking about your flower garden, nor are we referring to a Grateful Dead concert. And bobtailing has nothing to do with animals. Both deadheading (also known as bouncing) and bobtailing are trucking industry terms. Deadheading means driving, usually a return trip, with an empty trailer, and bobtailing means driving the tractor portion only, with no trailer attached.
The ability to stop is vastly different whether yo...

January 15, 2016 /

We have a truck driver shortage in the U.S., despite the fact that it is the most common job in nearly 30 states. In the U.S., truck drivers number 3.5 million, with about 1.8 million of them working specifically as long-haul or tractor-trailer drivers, according to 2014 figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Despite that number, according to the American Trucking Association, the industry lacks at least 48,000 drivers. Some peg the number ...

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AWARDED. CREDENTIALED. PROVEN.

Mike Stephenson is a Super Lawyer in Indiana along with many of his peers at McNeely Stephenson. This is one of the highest honors an attorney can achieve

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The AV Preeminent Rating from Martindale Hubbell is the HIGHEST RATING and considered a significant accomplishment. It is a peer-reviewed process reflecting that other attorneys rank Mike Stephenson at the highest possible level of professional excellence.

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Attorney Mike Stephenson is a proud member of The Litigation Counsel of America’s Honorary Society. A close-knit, peer-selected, and aggressively diverse honorary society of 3,500 of the “best trial lawyers” in the country. Less than one-half of one percent of American lawyers, vigorously vetted for skills, expertise, and service; an invitation-only collegial network.

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The American Board of Trial Advocates is an invitation-only organization for attorneys of “high personal character and honorable reputation.” ABOTA works for the preservation of the civil jury trial, “Justice by the People,” and supports the right of a jury trial.

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The National Trial Lawyers: Top 100 is an invitation-only organization composed of the premier trial lawyers. Membership is extended only to the select few of the most qualified attorneys. Indiana attorney Mike Stephenson is proud to be included in this national organization of top trial lawyers.

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Our attorneys are proven advocates and trial attorneys. They have served as lead trial counsel in more than 100 civil jury trials, and have handled litigation in 18 states